


One Wish

by EmilyElm



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday, Birthday Sex, F/M, M/M, Singing!Will, jealous!Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:10:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyElm/pseuds/EmilyElm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal is celebrating his birthday for the first time with Will, and it goes without saying that he has everything he could ever wish for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hesterbyrde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesterbyrde/gifts).



Hannibal's eyes dance as the single candle approaches, shielded by the hand of a waiter. He pretends that he doesn't see this and focuses on his wine. The hostess is gesturing for others to join them, and then the countdown to the song begins. It reminds him of another serenade. One he didn't actually hear from years ago. It started with dinner, as most things do. “The Virginia wine revolution is upon us,” Hannibal had said to the killer who made the mistake of sharing a song with his beloved.

 

As he savors the white wine filling his mouth, he wonders if he knew then, as he knows now, that everything came back to the Virginian revolution that is Will Graham, the man who had absconded with all of his forts. 

 

The rebellion had taken decades to arrive at Hannibal's shores. But only needed a few moments to harbor and set anchor at his door. As he stares across the table at his beautiful disrupter, it occurs to him that he had no idea what hit him so long ago.

 

Will has orchestrated for the waiters to sing happy birthday to Hannibal. He watches, delighted, as a dish is placed at the center of their table. A single candle sits in a mound of vanilla ice cream. Hannibal is truly surprised when a flower crown is placed on his head. “Feliz Cumpleanos,” the waiters croon. 

 

A mariachi band circles around their table and really lets the horn section loose. Will sways in his seat, amused by the festivities and Hannibal’s startled response to all this good cheer. He then joins the whole restaurant, who turn to sing and look at them. 

 

Will has a surprisingly beautiful voice. He hits all the high notes with an ease and clarity that hints at a missed calling. It saddens Hannibal that he never knew this about Will, that he had to discover this here. If he had a choice, he would’ve paid to see Will bring down the house with a solo. 

 

Always full of surprises, his Will. It is the greatest gift to discover this about him. And like everything with Will, he loves it at once and yet it hurts him too. He looks away to focus on the specific lilt spilling from Will’s lips, on how his voice trembles and catches and lifts above the others. 

 

He hopes tonight he will hear that high C again. Lots of birthday sex, Hannibal wishes as he blows out the candle. He had been overwhelmed the first time they’d been intimate. After all, he had been in jail for three years, fantasizing about this moment. He came so fast that it made his heart hurt. 

 

He rubs his ears, which have probably reddened by the heat of his thoughts about their intimacy. Will may conclude the shrieking and wailing from the crowd have gotten to him, but Hannibal has a tendency to block out the background when he wants to. His eyes dance around at the smiling faces, the clapping hands, the raised margarita glasses. He wonders if it even crosses their minds that he looks just like that cannibalistic serial killer that escaped the clutches of the Great Red Dragon a few years ago. He wonders what they’d do now if he stood up and told them who they were serenading.

 

He wonders who he is anymore. Of late, he feels caught, somewhere, on a distant shore. 

 

He looks back on his life. All the death and beauty and destruction are but an island in the distance. At the risk of sounding like Lucifer, there’s only Pre-Fall and Post-Fall as he relates to his life now. 

 

And his Pre-Fall days are covered in the heavy mist of banality. The BSHCI banishment being at the top of the list. He turns with clear eyes to his Post-Fall life and catches Will smiling at him. It could be a dream for all he knows. It’s all he wants to know.

 

The song ends too quickly. Or, rather, Will stops singing. Hannibal never wants him to stop now that he’s heard that voice. 

 

Will thanks the waiters and hostess in his halting Spanish. The hostess is a young woman, whose brash manner reminds Hannibal of Beverly. She locks eyes with Will, who has to recognize the determined set-of-her-jaw resemblance, too. A few months ago, Hannibal, in walking through the rooms of their mind palace together, discovered that Will had had an affair with Beverly. 

 

It had been brief, as she stopped calling Will when she saw signs of his increased instability. After-target practice drinks led to an extended one-night stand. Hannibal spent a lot of time in these rooms, watching how Beverly slept sprawled out in a diagonal across Will. When they ran out of condoms, how Will got her off with his mouth, his fingers. 

 

Beverly was another confidante Will turned to during the cases. They’d talk on the phone at night, giving Will a reprieve from the nightmares. It was the emotional intimacy that Hannibal felt betrayed by the most. He never knew Will had shared this outside of his office. Or the real reason Will was able to persuade her to go hunting for evidence to support his case. 

 

The Beverly-ghost hostess catches the icy drift from his direction and finds some other table to pester. Hannibal can’t dwell on the past, and he hopes Will won’t either. These moments lend itself to Will withdrawing from him. When the anniversary of Abigail’s death arrived, Will retreated to the guest bedroom and didn’t emerge for a week or so.

 

But not tonight. Tonight’s Hannibal’s night. And what a gift, when the hostess disappears, that Will lets the reminder of their difficult days drift away too. 

 

“I hope you’re not disappointed,” Will fills the sudden silence.

 

“Not at all,” Hannibal brushes aside his worry, Will's constant worrying, and smiles. 

 

“This is pretty remote, don’t you think? No one would have heard of us here.“

 

“Will,” Hannibal says, firm. “I’m not disappointed. I could never be disappointed with you. You know this.”

 

Will clamps his mouth shut and considers their state of forgiveness. After everything. Will blinks once, twice, determined to recognize their connection for what it is. He can do this for Hannibal.

 

Hannibal reaches out and grasps Will's hand. Grateful.

 

“Let’s go home,” Hannibal suggests, overwhelmed, by how exposed they’re both feeling. 

 

“This was more for me than you, wasn’t it?” Will realizes, eyeing the flower crown and the melting ice cream. 

 

“It means the world to me, to discover another talent hidden in you,” Hannibal speaks with an honesty that skips over Will like a river rock along his stream. “You’ve never sung for me before.”

 

“Never had an occasion to,” Will insists.

 

Hannibal reflects on the veracity of that statement, rewinding their celebrations together in his mind. He rests on an image of them in the shower after all their bandages had come off. In their mind palace, Will reaches his side and stands next to him outside the shower, in his sombrero, gazing at the image of their tangled bodies contorted by the shower door fogged by steam. 

 

Across the table, Will shoots him a look as if to say this is not the time nor place. Hannibal tilts Will’s sombrero on his head and then grabs a spoon to feed him the ice cream, which is definitely for Will. 

 

“Am I making up for lost time?” Hannibal shrugs. “Probably. Do you blame me?”

 

Will shakes his head, not trusting his voice. He’s relieved that Hannibal’s passion for the culinary arts has turned to him and that he’s somehow made Hannibal insatiable as a result. Will believes him when he’s said that no one else has made him feel this way. But he is wondering if he’s taking Viagra of late. Will decides that tonight may not be the night to mention it though.

 

The check comes and Will has finished off Hannibal’s birthday dessert and Hannibal still looks hungry. He recognizes that look now, for what it is. What it’s always been. This beast of desire between them. Maybe Viagra isn’t the problem after all.

 

Will sits back and cocks his head to the side, peering at Hannibal across the table, catching the light from the votive so that it flickers near his marred cheek, giving Hannibal a clear view of the scars on his face. 

 

“What is it you want, Hannibal?” Will asks, all Mona-Lisa-like. 

 

*

 

Hannibal enters Will and they simultaneously moan, consumed by being one in this moment. Will is shaky, even on his back, already off balance from the four Cadillac margaritas he ordered over dinner. Maybe it’s the angle of Hannibal’s next thrust, but Will cries out, hitting that high C, and before he can control it, Hannibal comes. 

 

Sometimes Will has that effect on Hannibal, especially when they are face-to-face, lost in the humid dampness that radiates off of them, and he knows he shouldn’t, but Will’s grinning from ear to ear, proud, that Hannibal’s even more overstimulated than he is. It’s a nice position to be in, for once. 

 

Hannibal absorbs the way his body tremors, floating almost, high from it, and Will stills under him, feeling Hannibal’s quaking inside him, how his heart his hammering between their chests. And Hannibal can't help but think -- if either of them must die, he has to be the one to go first. It can be the only way. His biggest fear, his penultimate secret, is a world without Will. He would go mad, to go through that again. 

 

Hannibal’s trembling ends, but he realizes he hasn’t stopped moaning and repeating Will’s name. He has to get a handle on himself or this is just further confirmation that Will needs about who is in control in this relationship. 

 

Who is he kidding? He has been reduced to a 15-year-old. And he blames Will Graham for putting him in such a state. 

 

Much to his surprise, he discovers he’s still hard and still in Will. The mess from his fast orgasm is oozing out between them. A flash of Will lifting the petite Beverly flickers through his mind. And he uses it. He shifts his weight, flipping Will in one deft motion onto his stomach. The sounds of Will’s muffled laughter going silent sparks a second wind in him. 

 

Hannibal starts thrusting again, listening to Will’s surprised and renewed moaning. His come, acting as a lubricant between them, drips and glides between them as Hannibal finds his rhythm. Hannibal hovers his lips above Will’s vertebrae and growls like a tiger over each knob and valley, losing himself again in what they bring out in each other. Will grinds his ass into him. They ride a new tempo now, a crescendo building once more. 

 

It’s like an erotic concert to Hannibal’s ears. Will’s cries echoing off the stucco walls. Their pleasure blurring into a tidal wave of emotion. His teeth gnash against the back of Will’s neck, at the lizard stem of his brain. Touching Will’s primal point takes Hannibal over the top and he comes again. 

 

He catches Will’s laughing, “Twice in one night.” Hannibal is winded and can’t move, poised over Will’s back as if aiming to strike. Lost in a nothingness that descends between them that feels like everything. 

 

He slaps Will’s ass just to bring himself back to earth. Hannibal takes in the sensation that, yes, he can still keep it up. In the jargon of the youth, he rolls like that. Young at heart. With Will. Only with Will. 

 

Hannibal finally pulls out, watching as copious amounts of release pours out of Will and coats his thighs. He is sapped dry, in every sense, and sinks onto his back, surrounded by pillows. 

 

“You drained me,” Hannibal accuses, throwing an arm over his eyes. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

 

“A loving end,” Will smiles and bends low to kiss his lips. 

 

“A perfect end, “ Hannibal cracks an eye open and stares at Will’s ass. 

 

Will follows his eyeline and groans at Hannibal’s pun. He twerks a little over Hannibal’s chest just for good measure. More splatter drips onto Hannibal’s torso. And Will can’t help but collapse at his side. “So much spunk,” Will sighs. Between his own and Hannibal’s, he’s covered in it.

 

He gathers Hannibal in his arms and traces his finger along the trail down Hannibal’s stomach in light feather touches. Hannibal responds, as he always does, to Will’s touch.

 

“Another round?” Will teases.

 

Hannibal licks his lips. So delectable. But even he has his limits. “Will you sing for me?”

 

Will groans and hangs his head. He glares at Hannibal. “I can deny you nothing on your birthday.”

 

Will does his best breathy impression of Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President”. Hannibal is utterly captivated. Happy, even. 

 

Tomorrow, life will interfere and they can return to their negotiations over observation and participation. But tonight is his. And he’s going to enjoy himself while it lasts. 

 

“Let’s take a shower together,” Hannibal suggests. 

 

“Like the first time?”

 

“If you’ll indulge me.”

 

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

 

Hannibal nods, letting that sink in. He reaches out to stroke Will’s dragon scar. As if expecting to wake any minute in the BSHCI to Denise threatening to mace him for the 100th time. 

 

Will catches Hannibal’s look and laces his fingers into Hannibal’s palm. Their rings glint in the moonlit room and Will reaches for the wilted flower crown on the nightstand and places it on Hannibal’s head. 

 

“C’mon,” Will drags him out of bed. “These are going to be the best years of your life. I promise you.”

 

And somehow Hannibal imagines that will be true. Even coming from Will’s mouth. 

 

The shower door closes, letting the steam clear the air between the past and their future.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Birdie! Check out her great fic on AO3 under Hesterbyrde and send her a birthday wish @littlethingwithfeathers. Wishing you a beautiful day.


End file.
